key: cord-0056658-z9o7kwf0
authors: Dossey, Larry
title: HEALERS IN THE PANDEMIC: HONORING THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
date: 2021-02-25
journal: Explore (NY)
DOI: 10.1016/j.explore.2021.02.008
sha: 0c8245a33c88317a4c7cc902bcf3e018227e50bd
doc_id: 56658
cord_uid: z9o7kwf0

nan

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Section Head: EXPLORATIONS

Larry Dossey, MD It may come as a surprise to readers of Explore that there is no official, accurate, and comprehensive database for healthcare workers who have died while caring for patients with COVID-19 disease. With the emergence of a mutation of the virus, it will become increasingly difficult to keep track of the exact number of these fatalities as time moves on.

In our data-obsessed era, how could this be? Claire Rezba, MD, an anesthesiologist at Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, was stunned by this situation. After seeing an article in March 2020 about the tragic story of a coronavirus healthcare worker, she said, "I didn't want to just look away. I began a personal effort to keep track of these numbers. So I kept counting." 1 Others also have been busy counting. While the exact number of healthcare and related workers who have given their lives in caring for COVID-19 patients is unknown, an estimated 1,700 deaths in U.S. healthcare workers were documented as of October 2020. They include physicians, nurses, assistants, technicians, orderlies, administrators, volunteers, drivers, porters, EMTs, firefighters, and more. 2 Workers of color are especially at increased risk. "In our recent study, we found the healthcare workers that were Black, Asian, or Hispanic were over 3-fold more likely to contract COVID-19 compared to white healthcare workers," said Dr. Andrew T. Chan, MPH, the lead investigator of a study, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a physician at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. 3 An admirable attempt at tracking COVID-19-related fatalities among healthcare workers around the world is the website of Medscape.com, at https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927976. The Medscape fatality list is titled "In Memoriam: Healthcare Workers Who Have Died of COVID-19." As of mid-2020, this list included more than 1,800 names from 64 countries. The youngest is 20, the eldest 99. Although this free website is incomplete, its organizers are determined that these casualties shall not go unnoticed. The website states:

Healthcare workers are on the front lines of the global effort to care for patients with COVID-19, while putting themselves at risk for infection. Thousands have already died, from dozens of countries, professions, and specialties. Here we honor them all.

Physicians, nurses, assistants, technicians, orderlies, administrators, volunteers, drivers, porters, EMTs, firefighters, and more -fresh on the job or retired -they are all remembered here. In some cases, we include names of people who did not die from COVID-19, but whose deaths were clearly related to the stress and demands of the pandemic. This … list is not yet complete, and we need your help to keep it up to date. Please submit names through this form with as much information as possible, including age, hospital or facility name, profession or specialty, location, and a link to source information. We rely on the links you include to verify each case. We are unfortunately unable to include names without confirmation of their death related to COVID-19.

To all who have submitted the names of colleagues, friends, and family members, we thank you for helping us remember them, and we mourn your loss.

Explore joins Medscape.com in remembering those who have given their lives in caring for patients infected with coronavirus disease. Their deaths are a solemn reminder that the profession we have chosen has never been entirely safe and sometimes requires the ultimate sacrifice. This is a commitment we have always met and shall continue to meet.

Executive Editor

Hundreds of healthcare workers have died from COVID-19: This doctor Is honoring them.Healthline